Saturday, November 17, 2007

Atlantis Honeymoon Day 5

This is the day I had planned for awhile. We had a speed boat ride to a private island in The Exumas. The Exumas are a large group of tiny islands about an hours ride south of New Providence. The ride to the islands where fun. We made a quick 30 minute stop at a very small island with a rare and protected species of iguana. The staff gave us grapes and had everyone feed the iguanas by putting the grapes on sticks and holding them out. Those critters were everywhere. Supposedly the island had over a thousand iguana, but I my estimate is that no more than a hundred were on the tiny beach with us. It funny, in the U.S., a protected species means you steer clear, neither help nor hinder. I guess in the Bahamas, it means you keep the species alive by giving the critters a daily meal that in no way could be mistaken as part of their natural diet. :)

We then hopped back on the speed boat for a quick and thrilling ride to the main island where we'd be staying for the day. I had the impression that the island would be a bit bigger. Part of the trip was to provide snorkelling opportunities, but this turned out to be a 1/4 mile guided water tour that required everyone to walk back up to the beach to get back to the main area. I settled for some close to the beach snorkelling instead. The main problem is that the they operators tried to cram too much adventure into one location. See, they organized a stingray feeding (more feeding of wild animals. OK, stingrays aren't terribly dangerous. But they capped off the fun with a shark feeding. So, that was a thrill to watch too, but here's the rub. They where feeding the sharks on the same beach where we were relaxing and swimming. Hmmm. Well, Allie wasn't much up for snorkelling under those conditions. I spent some time in the water, but spent most of my time on the beach relaxing in the sun. I'll say it was great to be somewhere away from the crowds. It was not a relaxing as I had hoped for though.

The ride back was met with more aggressive driving of the speed boat by the staff. They took 1 hour to get to the private island, but shoot for 45 minutes on the return. The ride was wet and bumpy. It was fun for a little bit, but then got old quick. The speed boat adventure trip was fun, but didn't live up to expectations, as I was finding true for the Bahamas in general.